I. The Fire Within — Lira
Snow fell in lazy flakes on the cabin roof, but inside, the air was too hot—hot with frustration. Lira knelt on the wooden floor, hands outstretched over a bucket of frozen water. Her lips murmured the formula for the seventeenth time:
"Icy heart, winter vein, may cold be born where heat fails…"
Nothing.
The water remained solid. Inert. As if mocking her.
"Why doesn't it work?" she whispered, pounding her fist on the floor. "I know the theory. The mana flow, the freezing knots, the lunar resonance… Everything's right!"
The door creaked.
Valeris entered, bringing with him the scent of pine and smoke. His hair was whiter than the previous week, and his hands were marked by old scars and recent cold.
"Magic doesn't obey theory, girl," he said, sitting down opposite her. "It obeys truth." Lira looked up, annoyed.
"What truth?"
"The truth that you're afraid."
She opened her mouth to protest, but fell silent. Because he was right.
"Afraid of the school?" Valeris asked softly.
"Afraid of… not being enough. Everyone in Elverest was born with pure mana. Me? I feel like I'm… pulling magic from the wrong place. Like it doesn't want to come."
Valeris placed a calloused hand on the bucket.
"In Vaelthar, there are two types of mana.
Solar mana—clear, clean, easy to mold. It's the mana of the Luminaris. It's taught in books, controlled with discipline.
And ancestral mana—dark, pulsating, connected to the earth, to bones, to blood. It doesn't obey words. It obeys memories."
Lira frowned.
"So… I am…?" "—You are you," he interrupted, with a tired half-smile. "But perhaps your magic doesn't need formulas. Perhaps it needs silence. To remember who you could have been… even if you don't know it yet."
He stood up.
"Stop forcing it.
Close your eyes.
And ask the ice: 'Do you remember me?'"
And he left, leaving her alone with the question hanging in the air like smoke.
Lira took a deep breath.
She lay on her back on the cold ground.
She closed her eyes.
She didn't think about the formula.
She didn't think about Elverest.
She thought about the snow in the forest.
The howls she never heard, but felt in her dreams.
The cabin, her brother, the old man who raised them as if they were blood.
And she whispered, almost silently:
"Do you remember me?"
The bucket trembled.
A crack.
A blue flash.
From within the frozen water, three stakes of black ice—with silvery veins, like wolf veins—rose in a spiral, sharp as teeth.
Lira sat up, panting.
Her eyes shone—not with magic, but with hope.
"Yes," she murmured. "I am ready."
II. The Echo of the Blade — Kael
The waterfall did not freeze. Even in the heart of winter, the water fell in rhythmic strokes upon the stones, like a hammer forging steel. It was there that Kael trained. Without a master. Without a name. Only with the wind, the blade, and the silence.
He was in a meditative position, barefoot in the snow, sword held vertically before his chest.
Aura—that's what he called it, though he didn't know the right term. It was the sensation that his body didn't end at his skin, but extended like smoke, touching every tree, every leaf, every drop of water.
"Concentrate." Don't cut with your hand. Cut with the air.
He breathed in.
He exhaled.
And then—he moved.
In a flash, his silhouette disappeared.
But no.
There were two Kaels now.
One remained in position.
The other, three meters away, struck the air with his sword, creating a pressure wave that cut a tree trunk in half.
The clone lasted three seconds.
Then, it dissolved into silvery mist.
Kael fell to his knees, panting.
His head throbbed.
But he smiled.
—It worked… again.
He didn't know how he did it. No book mentioned "mana clones." The Ironblood swordsmen would laugh at the idea. But he saw it in his dreams: a wolf running alongside a warrior, as if they were one.
Suddenly, the ground trembled.
A snow bear—twice the size of a man, its fur as black as coal and its eyes yellow with hunger—emerged from among the trees. It must have smelled the blood of the deer Kael had hunted earlier.
The animal growled, low and deadly.
Kael stood, sword in hand.
He was not afraid.
He was focused.
The bear charged like thunder.
Kael did not retreat.
He created the clone.
This time, the echo was stronger—clearer.
As the real Kael rolled to the side, the clone deflected the bear with a blow to the leg, opening a deep gash.
The bear roared, confused, turning toward the clone—but it was already dissolving.
Then Kael leaped.
With a guttural cry, he impaled the blade between the bear's ribs, using his own weight and the momentum of the fall. The beast fell, shuddering, until it lay motionless.
Silence.
Only the sound of the waterfall… and his own breathing.
Kael drew his sword, wiping the blood from the snow.
He looked at his hands.
He felt the same emptiness as always—but also something new.
An answer, deep down.
He walked back to the cabin, the snow covering his footprints behind him. He didn't know that, while he struggled, a constellation in the sky—departed seventeen years ago—had shone, for an instant, with silvery light.